Conventionally, myocardial perfusion scans are known for identifying myocardial ischemia in a patient, and the location of myocardial ischemia in the body of the patient. A myocardial perfusion scan includes images of the heart that characterize change in blood supply to a heart muscle of the patient during peak exercise relative to rest. To obtain a myocardial perfusion scan, a clinician injects a radioactive tracer into a vein of an arm of the patient. The radioactive tracer travels through the blood and into the heart muscle. As the tracer moves through the heart muscle, areas that have a good blood flow absorb the tracer, and areas that have reduced blood flow (for example, either restricted by a narrow artery or damaged by a closure causing a heart attack) absorb less of the tracer. A myocardial perfusion scan imaging device includes a camera that takes pictures of radioactivity distributed in the heart muscle. These pictures enable inference of the paths of the radioactive tracer and extent of the areas that do not have a good blood flow.
Although a myocardial perfusion scan imaging device can be used to identify myocardial ischemia and a location of the myocardial ischemia, these imaging devices are expensive and immobile. Further, the imaging results are dependent on technical skills of the operators and expertise of the interpreter that can lead to misinterpretation of images. Moreover, the test requires protection of the environment and persons exposed to radiation from the tracer during handling, international transport for delivery and use at a specially constructed site.